Sequoia ends its 17-year-old scout investing program

Sequoia this week told its network in a memo posted to X that it is overhauling its operations, closing its London office and ending its scout program. Some observers caution against reading too much into the London move, since the city still has a thriving AI scene; the scout shutdown, though, says more about where venture investing is headed.

Sequoia pioneered the scout model 17 years ago, letting select founders and operators write checks on the firm’s behalf; competition for deal flow pushed many other VC firms to copy it. A consensus now appears to be forming that the model, at least in its original form, has run its course. Not everyone bought into it from the start — investor Sheel Mohnot wrote on X this week that the idea never made sense to him, adding: “I suspect other firms will shutter theirs too.”

Sequoia’s memo didn’t argue against scouts directly; it framed the move as part of a push to concentrate energy on fewer priorities. Rival firm Andreessen Horowitz, by contrast, has leaned the other way, building a global scout network to find deals in the U.S. and smaller European hubs. Partner Gabriel Vasquez told TechCrunch earlier this year that a16z had reshaped its own program to concentrate on fewer, more active scouts — giving them bigger budgets in exchange for doing more, such as co-hosting dinners with the firm, even as the overall number of scouts shrank.

For founders, scouting has long been a draw: it builds ties to firms they may want checks or even a job from later, and the status of being someone who can write a check. Roxanne Varza, who runs Station F and was a Sequoia scout from 2020 to 2025, said she was sorry to see the program end and hoped other funds wouldn’t follow suit; she argued scouts have also helped mature Europe’s early-stage investing culture by letting participants build track records and direct relationships with funds. Still, the model may be fading for two structural reasons: seasoned operators can now capture more upside investing their own money as angels, and the biggest VC firms are established enough that top founders come to them directly, leaving scouts most useful only for the earliest or most niche deals — which is also why Varza expects the format to be revamped rather than abandoned, predicting that venture-partner-style arrangements with founders will outlast Sequoia’s particular program.

Why it matters

Sequoia closing the program it invented 17 years ago suggests the loosely targeted, cast-a-wide-net era of scout investing is fading, even as the underlying need for early, niche deal access survives — founders should expect scout programs to shrink and tighten rather than disappear entirely.